Issue 299: Kevin Fret, Ed Buck, Bryan Singer, Bruce Weber, AOC, HungYoungBrit, Ridder Rivera, ZednRay, and more...


Left &
Found

Body issues
Why do gay men hate their bodies?

Are thirsty traps destroying self-esteem and warping our views on dating? Martin Joseph thinks so. (Image)

Burden
The things LGBT dread that straight people don’t stress about.

Friends

Queer nation
Which is the world's most LGBT-friendly city?

Watch
Gillette "toxic masculinity" ad backlash shows why it’s needed.

Pic?
What makes men send dick pics?


Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin 1987 essay reveals Martin Luther King’s views on gay people.

Bayard Rustin's life and civil rights legacy, in pictures.

James Baldwin
How to cool it. "In Esquire's July 1968 issue, published just after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., the magazine talked to James Baldwin about the state of race relations in the country. We've republished the interview in full—and his words are incredibly relevant today." (July 1968)

Homeless queer people started our revolution, so why we forget about them?

LGBT 2000s

HIV
In 20 years living with HIV, my sanity has often been pushed to the limit.

Raped
A year ago I was raped. Here’s what I have learned.

Dumpster Fyre
How Fyre festival flogged an empty fantasy – and became a perfect symbol for our times. "Lots of chancers did very nicely out of the disastrous festival – while the unpaid islanders are dependent on a crowdfunding campaign."

Inequality
How the right tricked people into supporting rampant inequality.

MAGA

Gaslighting
I’ve counseled hundreds of victims of gaslighting. Here’s how to spot if you’re being gaslighted.


US
News

Ed Buck
Second black gay man found dead of meth overdose at prominent California Democratic power player Ed Buck’s apartment. 26-year-old Gemmel Moore was found dead in the apartment in July 2017 [see The Kaos Theory Issue 265]; the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Buck.

Timothy M. Dean: the story behind the man found dead in Buck's apartment.

Michael Rice's award-winning documentary parTy boi: black diamonds in ice castles exposed Ed Buck as a “serial predator,” and explores the tragic last days of Gemmel Moore.

Ed Buck's past: drugs, arrests, political machinations.

Gemmel Moore's mother on Ed Buck: "He's the devil."

Killer
This is David Keegan Riotto Haigh (left). He has been convicted of killing James Johnson Jr. (right) in his apartment, after meeting on the dating app Jack’d.

Texas
Nightclubs offer $US11k reward for information leading to arrest of men who attacked gay couple.

Thugs smeared faeces over gay men after using Grindr for kidnap plot.

Pastor who called gays "scum of the earth" fired for sleeping with prostitutes.

Nikolas Cruz
Why did you do this? "His brother confessed to gunning down 17 people in Parkland. But he’s the only family Zach Cruz has left."

Lorena Bobbitt

Severed penis spectacle arouses US passions at Lorena Bobbitt's trial. "Jonathan Freedland finds a carnival atmosphere outside court, as the trial enters its second day." (January 1994)

Kalief Bbrowder
NYC to pay $US3.3m settlement over suicide death of Kalief Bbrowder, the 16-year-old who spent three years at Riker’s Island - mostly in solitary - without ever being charged with a crime.

Bruce Weber
Jason Boyce, the model who has accused photographer Bruce Weber of sexual assault [see The Kaos Theory Issue 298], sent him naked photos, undermining his allegations.

 Hell hath no fury
Man "sent 1,000 Grindr men" to the home of his ex boyfriend, New Yorker Matthew Herrick (above), stalking lawsuit claims.

Crazed conservatives One Million Moms attack Parents magazine for "indoctrinating children" with cover story on Shaun T, his husband, and their twins.

Black gay couples face highest rate of mortgage discrimination.

Gays and lesbians are twice as likely to have substance abuse problems.

Yes she can
How Kamala Harris single-handedly changed the course of LGBT history.

 AOC
Who's afraid of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? "In Ocasio-Cortez we see what it might look like for left to retake control – to begin talking about what we want to talk about rather than whatever Trump is spewing."

Sorry Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, your "minority privilege" is no longer secret. "Laura Ingraham’s whine about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has rumbled our secret: once you ignore the facts, minorities are having a grand old time in America."

tRump
Trump posts altered photos to Facebook and Instagram that make him look thinner.


Lightning struck
How an Atlanta neighbourhood died on the altar of Super Bowl dreams. "When fans file into Mercedes-Benz Stadium on February 3 for football’s biggest game, few of them will know how much of Atlanta’s history was sacrificed in the name of the city’s Super Bowl dreams. Thirty years ago, an entire neighborhood called Lightning was demolished to make way for the Georgia Dome, which itself was demolished in 2017 to make way for the Benz. Today, the history of Lightning exists mostly in the memories of those who called it home. Max Blau and Dustin Chambers have gathered their stories."

Chicago hope
Is Chicago’s legacy of segregation causing a reverse Great Migration? "Black Chicagoans are leaving the city, and an unexamined history of racial discrimination may be to blame."

Bundy
Ted Bundy was deeply mediocre – so why are we romanticising him? "The serial killer is being played by Zac Efron in a new film. Yet his crimes were the only thing that made him special."

Jonestown
The Jonestown we don’t know. "In the wings of this great drama were the unseen. Hidden in the rainforest where the violence was staged, in the eerie aftermath of the tragedy, were three people whose stories cue political contexts in both the US and Guyana crucial to understanding how and why Jonestown may have happened."


UK
News

Brexit
Why Brexit might be the end of LGBT protection.

Deep tube
George Mason, who performs as HungYoungBrit on the website of the same name, has pleaded guilty to one charge of outraging public decency. 35-year-old Mason and his 24-year-old boyfriend Nicholas Mullan recorded a video of them engaging in oral and anal sex on a London Underground train. Prosecutor Victoria Murphy told the court: “On the 19th of February 2018, British Transport Police were contacted to a report of a video which had been posted online showing three men engaged in explicit sexual acts on a train. It showed full sex, oral sex and masturbation in the presence of the travelling members of the public.”

Filth
Obscene porn rules relaxed in England and Wales - sadomasochism, torture with instruments, bondage and water-sports now allowed.

Health officials in UK warn of drug resistant shigella outbreak among gay men.

Leicester
This is 19-year-old Chad Gurney. He's in court for attempting to murder a man from Grindr after they had sex in a park.

London
Gang of nine jailed for homophobic acid attack in Hackney.

Four men wanted by police over homophobic attack on the Southbank.

This (right) is 53-year-old Frank Lennon. He was murdered by 18-year-old Daniel Kurmelovs in the course of rough role-play; a jury convicted Kurmelovs of murder after less than an hour of deliberations.

Man in his 20s sexually assaulted by two Eastern European men in central London.

Protestors wrap Russian embassy with the rainbow flag to protest the anti-gay purge in Chechnya.

18-year-old man charged over Jaden Moodie murder.

London killings: how homicides in the capital rose to a decade high. "Last year 135 people were murdered or unlawfully killed in London – the highest total since 2008. Many of the victims were teenagers or in their twenties and most were stabbed."

Young Londoners pay the price as the city expands. "As the city’s population nears 10 million and its murder rate reaches its highest in a decade, are young Londoners suffering disproportionately?"

Croydon "zombie knife" attacker Joshua Gardner jailed for three and a half years.

Surprise! Tory London mayor candidate Shaun Bailey is the "worst kind" of misogynist.

Colour bar on landladies' cards. "Euphemisms have started appearing on noticeboards advertising rooms to rent." (January 1959)

Manchester
Drag queen Peggy Wessex under fire over "vile" poster mocking black and brown Pride flag.

UK’s only purpose-built LGBT centre gets £450,000 boost for rebuild.

Racism in Britain
The shocking impact of unconscious bias.

Scotland
Lesbian couple jailed for six years over death of malnourished daughter.

The A-listed modernist ruin of St Peter's Seminary is an "albatross around our neck", the church claims.

A second coming for Scotland’s modernist masterpiece? "Scotland’s most significant modernist building, St Peter’s seminary near Glasgow – built in 1966 and abandoned in 1980 – lies in ruins. But plans are afoot to resurrect this battered masterpiece and give it a second, secular life." (January 2015)


World
News

Angola
Homosexuality decriminalised in southern African country. (Image)

Australia
MP Bob Katter calls homosexuality a "fashion trend", says he’d never seen nor heard of a gay person till he was 50.

Asylum seekers asked if they drank "cum" by immigration officials.

Melbourne gay bar Poof Doof apologises for telling photographers: only shoot hot boys with muscles.

How the vote on marriage equality very badly affected LGBT people.


The passive racism of Australian media is borne of arrogance, ignorance, fear and fragility.

The ghost towns of Outback South Australia

Austria
Gay policeman wins long fight for justice - after he was sacked in 1976 for sexual indecency with minors and who lost 25% of his police pension.

Bahamas
Gay travellers warned about homophobia risk.

Brazil
Bolsonaro strips LGBT rights on his first day.


Man confesses to ripping heart out of trans woman.

The vast ecological cost of Brazil's mining disasters.

Canada
Serial killer Bruce McArthur pleads guilty to eight counts of murder. "McArthur is convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Soroush Mahmudi, Kirushna Kanagaratnam, and Abdulbasir Faizi. The 67-year-old former landscaper preyed on men with ties to the city’s Gay Village who went missing between 2010 and 2017."

 "We were all betrayed," says victim's friend. "After Tuesday's guilty plea, Kevin Nash remembers Skandaraj Navaratnam as charming, kind and charismatic."

Brandon Truaxe, the out, gay founder of skin care company Deciem, is dead. He was 40.

Chechnya
The torture and killing of LGBT people: a new Holocaust?

Chile
Gay men tortured with lit cigars and boiling water in homophobic attacks.

Egypt
TV host Mohamed al-Ghiety jailed for interviewing gay man.

Ghana
Two arrested for using Grindr to blackmail and rob gay men.

Greece
Bishop Amvrosios found guilty of homophobia and hatred.


Haiti
The island's isolated and forgotten village, in pictures.

Honduras
Counting the cost of crime, in pictures.

Indonesia
Mayor targets gay people "because they’re possessed by demons".

Bali’s beautiful LGBT pageant held in secret.

Iraq
Amir Ashour fled Iraq because he was gay: a death sentence in his homeland. This is his story.

Israel
"Gay conversion" therapist convicted of molesting boys for years. "Reuven Welcher tricked underage men seeking to reduce their homosexual feelings into consenting to acts; as part of plea deal, prosecution won’t seek jail term."

Italy
Gay man in Turin called "f**king faggot"; beaten by twelve attackers.

Burglars target Gay Center causing in €10,000 damage.

Newspaper sparks fury with "homophobic" headline seemingly correlating economic decline with an increased number of gay people.


Jamaica
J-Flag, the island's LGBT group, ask for donations after office is set on fire.

Japan
Law demanding sterilisation for trans people upheld.

Chiba becomes first Japanese city to issue certificates for same-sex couples.

Lebanon
Grindr banned amid homophobic crackdown.

Netherlands
Gay travel bloggers photos stolen by pro-paedophilia Twitter troll.

New Zealand
United Nations warns: do more for LGBT equality.

Nigeria
Police spokesperson tells gay people: leave or face prosecution.

Actor Alexx Ekubo shares pro-LGBT message, preaching tolerance and respect.

Russia
Website calls for "gay hunters" to attack LGBT people.

YouTube video featuring same-sex kisses banned.

Singapore
HIV status of over 14,000 people leaked online.

Spain
Barcelona’s LGBT centre vandalised one week after opening.

Gay military pilot from Venezuela forced to become a sex worker.

Tanzania
Albinos embrace a life beyond stigma and superstition.

Thailand
Into the dark. "The inside story of an improbable team of divers, a near-impossible plan and the rescue of 12 boys from a Thai cave."

Ukraine
Brave Ukrainian soldier comes out and changes people’s perceptions.

The LGBT soldiers of Ukraine. "Anton Shebetko's project aims to show just how much gay soldiers have sacrificed for their country."

Watch

Ghetto
Romance

LGBT people with cognitive disabilities on dating and stigma.

Throuple
Frankie Grande’s throuple didn’t work out.

Watch
Why using cheating as a prank isn’t funny; and Bradley ponders relationship types.


Medicine
Ball

Body dysmorphia

HIV
What if your system isn’t responding to your HIV treatment?

Butt what

Clap back
Super-gonorrhoea spread causes concern.

Alcohol-linked disease overtakes hepatitis C as top reason for liver transplant.

Hangxiety
Why alcohol gives you a hangover and anxiety.

Throat
Persistent sore throat can be cancer sign, boffins warn.

Sunscreen
Is sunscreen the new margarine? "Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and unscientific, controversial new research suggests—and quite possibly even racist. How did we get it so wrong?"

Empathy

Awe
Cirque du Soleil and the neuroscience of awe. "A group of scientists studied the mind-blowing effects of Cirque du Soleil shows. Here’s what they learned."


The White
Heat of This Revolution

Sexuality
Big tech's war on sex. "The deplatforming of sexuality and how to resist it."

Thieves of experience

Digital detox
What’s all this fuss about — and does it really work?

Social media
Rotting democracy from within. "How social platforms enable far-right politicians’ campaigns to undermine democracy."

Grindr
Into, Grindr's online LGBT publication, axed.

Log off

Scruff
Are Scruff’s new photo policies a dark precursor to FOSTA/SESTA legalised censorship of LGBT content?

Men in jockstraps react!

Tumblr
Twelve post-Tumblr spaces for sex-positive queer men.

Facebook
Burnt-out moderators are proof that it is broken.

Facebook is predicting if you'll kill yourself. That's wrong.

Twitter
Barbarian country, or how I learned to love the block button. "I’ve banished 10,000 accounts from my feed to render the medium as exciting as I once imagined that it could be."


Betta
Work!

Air force
Air traffic controllers defeated Trump. That's worker power.


I Own
51% Of This Company!

Sears
Closing down sale: is this the end of Sears? "The bricks-and-mortar chain is the latest high-profile victim of the shift to online shopping but some wounds are self-inflicted."

Sears liquidation looms after $4.4bn takeover deal faulters. "Assets to go up for auction after bankruptcy judge gives financier Edward Lampert more time to improve offer."

Sears’s former CEO is preventing a liquidation. He was largely responsible for the company’s bankruptcy.

 Watch

Ace's Adventures offers a complete history of the Schuylkill Mall in Pennsylvania; Sal revisits Century III Mall in Pennsylvania; Retail Archaeology is in Flagstaff Mall in Arizona; and Faded Commerce ventures to New England for a peek at Enfield Square Mall.

Amazon
Prime and punishment. "Dirty dealing in the $175 billion Amazon Marketplace."

Lego
A higher rate of return than gold or stocks?


Arena

Watch
Professional wrestler and vlogger Anthony Bowens ditches "bisexual" label, now says he's gay.

Wig out
Andrew Wiggins, a basketball player with the Minnesota Timberwolves, denies referring to Dennis Schroder as “gay”, and claims he has “the utmost respect and love” for the LGBT community.

Watch
NBA's Reggie Bullock opens up about losing his transgender sister to murder.

 Christian duty
College football player Christian Zeitvogel comes out as gay.

Queer leaders
Quinton Peron and Napolean Jinnies - male cheerleaders for the Los Angeles Rams - will make history with a performance at the NFL Super Bowl.

Don't Braga
Gay Brazilian footballer Douglas Braga returns to sport after quitting.

Be more pacific
US soccer player Matt Pacifici comes out as gay.

Cheek of it
British footballer Ruben Loftus-Cheek denies report he came out as gay to teammates.

Watch
World Rugby releases new gay rugby documentary on Mark Bingham.

Cougars
Married gay couple Ryan O’Neill and Kaue Garcia become "first" to own a professional sports club after acquiring a stake in British rugby team the Keighley Cougars.

Andre Williams

Stroke
Michael Johnson: how "Superman" Olympic champion's world was changed by stroke.


Art
Skool

Gay In Trumpland
Ron Amato's new exhibit at New York's Leslie-Lohman Project Space.

George Platt Lynes
The forgotten legacy of gay photographer George Platt Lynes.

Basquiat
Art examiner discovers secret Basquiat drawings using a blacklight.

Gallery
The young men of Coitus magazine, in pictures.

Gallery
The photography of Claus Pelz, in pictures.

Gallery
The art of Ray John Pila, in pictures.

Gallery
The art of Henry Hung Chang, in pictures.

Gallery
The art of Torajiro, in pictures.

Bauhaus at 100
The revolutionary movement's enduring appeal.

Take a seat

Word!

Interview
Talking to Casey Gerald about his book, There Will Be No Miracles Here.

Interview
Talking to Benj Pasek about his novel, Dear Evan Hansen.

New
Out in Time: The Public Lives of Gay Men from Stonewall to the Queer Generation, by Perry N. Halkitis. "One of the themes that emerged were the generational differences that exist between cohort of gay men. 'It become apparent that this generational divide was missed opportunity for gay men of all ages to learn from each other. Also the men of my generation seemed to believe that coming out was substantially easier nowadays that it was in the 1980’s and before. But in working with many young people, member of the Queer Generation, in my own lab the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies, I have come to understand that that there are many similar challenges of gay men in coming our an negotiating their identity.'”

Review
A Ladder to the Sky, by John Boyne. "[It] asks us to accept a number of clichés... The great pleasure of Boyne’s novel is the schadenfreude."

Oranges, by Gary Eldon Peter. "A debut collection of linked short stories about love, loss, and intimacy, Oranges is a gentle look at what it means to come of age and grow older as a gay man in the Midwest."

History
Academic publisher Gale publishes new encyclopaedia focusing on global LGBT history. Plus: the ten best LGBT history books.

 Not the butler
The thrill (and the heavy emotional burden) of blazing a trail for black women journalists. "Dorothy Butler Gilliam remembers how exciting it was to integrate The Washington Post, but also how lonely — and often attacked — she felt as the first black woman reporter in the newsroom."

Uttar Pradesh
Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to host its very first LGBT literature festival.

Boner killer

Salinger
The eternal adolescent voice of The Catcher in the Rye, in one passage.

What the font?
This font you know from old pulp novels is all over new books. "An approachable-witchy 1938 typeface is the hand-cut, calligraphic answer to colder modern sans-serifs."

On the rag
The month in gay mags. Week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4.


Shouting
At Night

Review
Choir Boy "allows young Black men the rich, messy humanity of any other character, rather casting them as unseen statistics or putting them on trial, is rare enough to merit celebration. Choir Boy, which opened tonight marking the Broadway debut of Moonlight screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney, is nothing short of a rapture."

Review
Leave to Remain. Spirited gay-marriage musical from Kele Okereke. "In Okereke and Matt Jones’s play, directed by Robby Graham, the story, song and movement are seamlessly integrated."

Review
Bleach. "Sex work itself may be considered a kind of performance; there is some layer of separation, however thin or tenuous, between the body that’s paid for and the person who climbs into their own bed at night. If it allowed us a clearer glimpse beyond Tyler’s on-the-job performance, Bleach might really sear the senses."

Review
Extra Virgin. "An emotional deep dive into trauma and gay online hookups."

Review
Coming Clean. Revival of pioneering play of a gay love triangle. "Sexual freedom and emotional commitment clash in Kevin Elyot’s debut exploring sexual deception in a gay relationship."

Idols
Gay idols on the Paris stage. "Two related scenes are currently playing out in theaters here. In Les Idoles (The Idols), the actress Marina Foïs recounts in detail the death of the philosopher Michel Foucault, in 1984, of an AIDS-related illness. At the Espace Cardin, Foucault’s homosexuality is seen through the eyes of his first biographer, the sociologist Didier Eribon, in Retour à Reims (Returning to Reims)."

Interview
Talking to Christophe Honoré about the idols lost to Aids. "The French writer-director talks about his highly personal new show, a ‘dance of the dead’ that pays tribute to artistic heroes including Jacques Demy."

Interview
Talking to Layton Williams.

Watch
What RuPaul will never understand about drag. "Transgender, Afro-Latinx drag king Chiyo Gomes is challenging the ideals of mainstream drag."

Hector Xtravaganza

Voguing
How I fell in love with voguing. "It is unapologetically queer – both non-masculine but also comprising strong shapes and tough attitudes."

 In sync
The radical art of lip sync. "Straight people are into drag now, which is cool. But let's not forget that, for queer people, lip syncing goes way beyond entertainment."

Hattie Hathaway
Brian Butterick, perhaps better know as Hattie Hathaway, the New York drag queen, is dead. He was 62.

Kevin Barnett, the up-and-coming comedian, is dead. He was 32-years-old.

Carol Channing
Carol Channing, the broadway legend and Manhattan doyenne, is dead. She was 97.

Carol Channing: obituary.

Carol Channing: a life, in pictures.

Carol Channing and her many gay friends, in pictures.


Film
Skool

Bryan Singer
Director Bryan Singer faces new sexual assault claims in explosive exposé revealing details of alleged incidents.

Singer responds to new allegations he sexually assaulted minors.


R Kelly, Michael Jackson and Bryan Singer. Who knew? Everyone. "Beset by allegations of predatory and abusive behaviour – including rape – the film director retains support in the film industry while he continues to bring in the money."


Hollywood
The LGBT Asian-Americans shattering Hollywood's glass closet.

The newest generation of Hollywood is more queer than ever.


Beautiful ugly
Why cinema can't kick its drug habit. "This week, Timothée Chalamet chucks crystal meth for easy awards bait. Next week, Clint Eastwood smuggles coke for dodgy social commentary. When will the movies stop their substance abuse?"

Interview
Talking to Vincent Rodriguez III, the gay actor playing a straight heartthrob.

Interview
Talking to director Micheal Rice about his film parTy boi, Ed Buck and meth in the black gay community.

Watch
Here's the trailer for Sampson McCormick's new film A Different Direction, starring Noah's Arc's Darryl Stephens.

Watch
Watch Straight A, Todd Lien's award-winning gay short.

Watch

Mid90s
Why every queer gen-xer should see Jonah Hill’s Mid90s.

Caning it
Michael Caine was "warned against" taking gay roles in the 1970s.

J.Lo
The best and the worst Jennifer Lopez films, ranked.

Review
The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Heartfelt yet twee ode to the city. "Impressive visuals, strong performances and earnest intentions wrestle with an overly precious tone in an ambitious directorial debut."

Review
Native Son. Ashton Sanders dominates darkly compelling adaptation. "Richard Wright’s controversial novel gets a haunting contemporary update that boasts another lingering performance from the Moonlight breakout."

Review
Monsters and Men. Boys from the hood take a stand on the street. "Reinaldo Marcus Green’s tough drama follows the fortunes of three young African-American men who find their loyalties divided – and their futures in peril."

Review
Hale County, This Morning, This Evening. Poetic and profound. "RaMell Ross abandons convention in this dazzling Oscar-nominated documentary about a black community in Alabama."

Review
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Zac Efron shocks as Ted Bundy. "The star’s charismatic and creepy performance as the notorious serial killer is the best thing about an otherwise pedestrian and graceless drama."

Review
Can You Ever Forgive Me? Horribly hilarious odd-couple caper. "Melissa McCarthy is magnificent as an odious literary forger abetted by Richard E Grant as her lounge-lizard drinking buddy."

Review
Beautiful Boy. Screamingly cliched view of drug addiction. "Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet play father and son in a film based on a true story hampered by its white-privilege viewpoint."

Review
Holmes & Watson. Elementary homophobic grossout comedy. "This murky Sherlock tale is the nadir of Conan Doyle adaptations."

Review
The Upside. Bryan Cranston heads up horrific odd-couple disability drama. "This sentimental remake of French heartwarmer The Untouchables pairs a quadriplegic businessman with black carer Kevin Hart to give unfunny echoes of Trading Places."

 Watch
The incomparable Beryl Reid talks to Denis Tuohy about her life on and off the stage. It's 1986.

 Watch



The
Box

What’s their beef?

No Hart
Pose actor Billy Porter to Kevin Hart: "Fuck you."

No guy for the queer guy
Queer Eye's Jonathan Van Ness and rugby player Wilco Froneman are no longer.

Sex Education
In praise of the raunchy yet heartfelt Netflix comedy. "The critically acclaimed series combines teen comedy tropes with remarkable honesty, offering a fully fleshed portrait of how high schoolers deal with sex and consent today."


Interview
Talking to writer and director Leon Cheo about his show People Like Us, Singapore’s first online gay drama.

Interview
Talking to Alex Landi about his role as Grey's Anatomy's first openly gay male surgeon.

Watch
Here's the trailer for filmmaker Nelson Lassiter’s new gay web series, Single Record.

Watch
Here's the trailer for Gregg Araki's (Mysterious Skin, The Living End) Now Apocalypse.

Drag Race
The UK version of the show has been criticised for "body shaming" applicants to be in the pit crew.

The season 11 queens out of drag, in pictures.

Ken doll
Celebrity Big Brother's Rodrigo Alves has been documenting his latest plastic surgery, in Iran.

Ellen
How even Ellen got bored with The Ellen Degeneres Show. "The comic’s comeback as a talkshow host may have been triumphant, but season upon season of feelgood memes and dancing have come at a cost."

Boy wow
Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman flaunts it - in the name of reading.

Prince Albert
EastEnders to introduce first gay bar to Albert Square.

An EastEnders gay bar? I am worried. "Albert Square will soon get its first gay bar in a bid to reflect real life in London. What next – a vegan farmers’ market? Walford should be left alone."

Watch
Remembering Eastenders' greatest ever Ben Mitchell.

Sopranos
A glorious pioneer of today’s TV golden age. "Twenty years ago, the depiction of a grisly murder helped spark a cultural big bang that still reverberates on our screens."

Hate the Sopranos finale? You're not a real fan of the series. "Was he killed, or did Tony Soprano eat his onion rings in peace? The final scene was a masterstroke – don’t mess with greatness."

How the hit show changed the gangster genre. "Since the end of the landmark drama, big and small screen attempts to recreate the magic have struggled with a muddled understanding of what made Tony Soprano so impactful."

ER
How ER went from the "Sexiest Man Alive" to the misery medics. "From ‘white saviour’ stories to killer helicopters, the once-life-affirming drama’s final five seasons oscillated between the tedious and unintentionally hilarious."

 Watch
Josh Snares investigates Doctor Who's lost episodes.


Beats,
Rhymes
& Life

Kevin Fret
Kevin Fret, the out, gay Puerto Rican rapper, is dead. He was 24. The artist was shot dead in San Juan. His manager, Eduardo Rodríguez, said: “Kevin was an artistic soul, a big-hearted dream. His passion was music, and still had a lot to do. This violence must stop. There are no words that describe the feeling we have and the pain that causes us to know that a person with so many dreams has to go.”

Fret's death highlights Latin trap’s homophobia problem. "Only after his murder is the openly gay Latin trapero getting the attention his work deserved."

 The death of the gay trap star highlights the crisis in Puerto Rico. "Foul play suspected in the fatal shooting of singer; Bad Bunny and Residente confront Governor Ricardo Rosselló about rising violence on the island."

Music Bear

Houari Manar
Houari Manar, a gay Algerian folk music artist, is dead. He was 37.

Year in review
The best of Beats, Rhymes & Life: the year's top fifty artists featured on KAOS.

When black male singers were sex symbols. "Teddy Pendergrass was the R&B singer women wanted and who men wanted to be. And the one whose life-sized cardboard cutout stood in one family’s living room."

Troye Sivan

Macaulay Culkin

Drilled
Skengdo and AM: the drill rappers sentenced for playing their song. "Already banned from one postcode, the duo received a prison sentence for performing Attempted 1.0 – making legal history."

Oxide & Neutrino
How we made Bound 4 Da Reload (Casualty). "'There was a rise in gun crime and garage was blamed. We went from being on Top of the Pops to not being able to play anywhere. Then I was shot.'"

Tekashi 6ix9ine
The rise and fall of a hip-hop supervillain. "He was SoundCloud rap’s most notorious star. But the same instincts that made him huge may put him in prison for years."

Chris Brown
Chris Brown arrested for rape in Paris...


Video of Drake kissing, fondling underage girl surfaces on Twitter.

R. Kelly
R. Kelly dropped by Sony Music.


Meat
Market

State of the nation

Sober sex
Gay escorts are fighting chemsex by offering a "sober sex' service.

Hero worship

Michael Lucas
The New York Post's Page Six retracts false report about Michael Lucas exposing celebrity clients from his hustling days; Lucas denies the allegations, claims he's shocked and upset.

Romp
Str8UpGayPorn has plenty of pictures of HungYoungBrit’s bareback Tube romp.

 Helixit
Blake Mitchell - and Angel Rivera announce their departure from troubled Helix Studios.

Interview
Talking to Steven Lee about forecasting the weather, sex on camera, and more.

Hustlaball
The stars and their admirers - on stage and backstage - in pictures.

Gallery
GayVN Awards, in pictures.

 Watch

Dan Yates gives Nick Masc, Devin Walker and Sky Knox "singlet defense" tips.

New
Introducing Mateo Fernandez and Travis Youth.

Vary it
Jason Vario and Alexander Kristov do it.

Outfoxed
Lucas Fox and Damon Heart do it.

Guy pile
Andrey Vic, Andy Star, Drake Rogers, Jackson Radiz, James Castle, Ken Summers, Manuel Skye, Max Arion, Michael Lucas, Victor Dangelo and Viktor Rom do it.

Yes we cum
Dillon Diaz and Alex Mecum do it.

Bank rolled
Beaux Banks and Jason Wolf do it.

Cyber sex
Beaux Banks and Liam Cyber do it.

Dante's peak
Dante Martin and Ryker Fox do it.

Ken doll
Ridder Rivera and Ken Summers do it.

Get rid
Ridder Rivera and Anteo Chara do it.

Bad seed
William Seed and Rocky Vallarta do it.

Go west
Dylan Hayes and Micah West do it.

Brady bunch
Dylan Hayes and Josh Brady do it.

Frankophile
Jean Franko Fucks Malek Tobias do it.

Star power
Andy Star and Vadim Romanov do it.

Lorca-motive
Antony Lorca and Alan Mosca do it.

Hoyt stuff
Hoyt Kogan and Jarrod Lanvin do it.

No joke
Joaquin Arrenas flaunts it.

Vice squad
Mateo Vice, Vinny Hattan and Theo Brady do it.

Junior high
Randy Junior and Koldo Goran do it.

Manny from heaven
Manny Killa and King Ant do it.

The Simpsons
Randy Reno and Collin Simpson do it.


Hell's
Kitchen

Glory
London's gay bars are alive and well.

Meat suit

Zoo

Antsy
How do ants sniff out the right path? "They may seem like automatons, but ants are surprisingly sophisticated in their navigational strategies.Carpenter ants follow trails. Just watch them wandering about on your wooden porch until they strike a trail of pheromones (chemicals ants use for communication) that another ant has laid down. Ants don’t have noses, so they wave their antennas around to pick upthe trail, then off they go on the road to ruin. (Carpenter ants destroy houses.) Scientists know plenty about ants, including their ability to follow scent trails, but researchers at Harvard wanted to get a more detailed understanding of how exactly ants sniff, or taste, the pheromone-marked path. First, some basics: Ants use their antennas to pick up chemical cues left by other ants."

Outfoxed
The fox is not only nicer than the fox hunter, he’s a deal more useful. "‘My own private war with the foxes is over,’ says a veteran farmer - they are more effective in dealing with rats and mice than human pest controllers." (January 1982)

Monkey business

Gallery
The month in wildlife: week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4.


Rag
Trade

In harness
How the bondage harness was rebranded as red carpet-wear.

The stars of London fashion week men's, in pictures.

Backstage at Craig Green's autumn/winter show, in pictures.

Backstage at the Fashion East autumn/winter show, in pictures.

Pants
What your choice of trousers says about you.

Obituary
Joe Casely-Hayford. "Pioneering fashion designer who mixed traditional tailoring with looks from the London street."


Planes,
Trains &
Automobiles

Emirates
Emirates accused of censoring same-sex kisses in TV and films.

Lockerbie
Pan Am Flight 103: Robert Mueller’s 30-year search for justice. "In 1988 a bomb downed a jet in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 in the first major attack on Americans. Robert Mueller, then the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, oversaw the case. For him, it was personal."

LaGuardia
Traffic. "At any given moment, on any given morning, there are roughly 6,000 planes on their way to somewhere, from somewhere, over American airspace. Getting them safely down to the ground will depend upon the efforts of a small group of controllers who, nearly without fail, get the job done despite long hours, grim working conditions, and ancient technology. Jeanne Marie Laskas journeys to the tower at LaGuardia Airport in New York City to find out how it all happens." (April 2009)

Philippine
Manila's jeepneys, in pictures.

Last ship
The last days of shipbuilding. Photographer Chris Killip's collection The Last Ships records the decline of heavy industry on the Tyne in the 1970s.


Vloglife
Meet ZednRay; Walter discusses Ed Buck; Andrew's back; and we're back with Back with Ask The Aunties.
Life's A
Goddamn
Laugh Riot
Out Filipino-Korean comedy writer and songwriter Nathan Ramos gifts us a gay Asian country love song; it's R.I.P. to condoms; Steam Room Stories; and: four minutes, two 17-year-old boys, and one rotary phone. Go!

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